Archie tried to sit up a little, immediately regretting it. “Who was that?” he asked, wincing.

“Lab,” Henry said, walking back to Archie’s bedside. “The DNA on Karim’s teaspoon matched the DNA that Robbins found on Lisa Watson’s body.”

“And?” Archie asked.

“And what?”

Archie examined his friend’s face, looking for some hints as to what was coming. But Henry wasn’t giving him anything. “You’re just learning this now?” Archie asked.

“Yep,” Henry said. He sat on the edge of Archie’s bed, folded his hands, and waited.

Archie struggled to understand. If Henry had only just now matched Karim’s DNA, then what had led Henry and Sanchez to the island the night before? Henry would have had no way of tracing Archie to the island. Even once Henry had heard everything from Rachel—nothing would have led him to figure out where Gretchen had taken him.

“I thought…” Archie said.

“I called the number,” Henry said.

Archie was still. He could feel the saline and the morphine dripping into his vein, the cold bright burn in his blood. He could feel Henry’s girth on his bed, a heavy presence that seemed to anchor the bed to the floor. Archie watched as Henry wedged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small folded piece of yellow paper: the Post-it note that Archie had given Henry before Jack Reynolds’s party.

Henry unfolded the Post-it note and held it out to Archie. Archie didn’t have to look. He knew what he’d written.

“It’s a telephone number,” Henry said.

Archie turned his eyes to the paper, a knot hardening in his throat. “I told you to look at that if I was gone for twenty-four hours,” Archie said. “I came back.”

“And then you disappeared again,” Henry said evenly. “And there I am—you and Susan both missing, and I’ve got Rachel, or whatever the fuck her name is, with some hysterical, convoluted story, and I’ve got your computer infected with malware that Ngyun tells me has been on it since August, and I don’t mind telling you, I’m getting mighty concerned at this point—and then”—he looked at Archie, incredulously—“I remember the number. Your Visa number, right? That was your joke. Only when I unfold it and look at it, I find this.” Henry held the paper close to Archie’s face. “Ten digits. A drop phone. Untraceable. A hotline I could call if you ever got in the kind of trouble I couldn’t get you out of myself.”

Archie didn’t move.

“So I called it,” Henry said.

He was looking at Archie intently—his skeptical blue eyes watching him, cataloging his reactions.

The shadows in the room seemed longer, the air thicker. Archie swallowed. “Did she pick up?” Archie asked hesitantly.